Plastic bag use had reduced significantly on the first day of plastic bag tax measure

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Guest cici

Plastic bag use had reduced significantly on the first day of plastic bag tax measure

source: takungpao

translated by cici@Asianeu

Public has reduced plastic bag use in significant amount on the first day of Government levying plastic bag tax

Government introduced plastic bag tax on the day before yesterday, and environmental organizations observed a successful result in up to 18 supermarkets, finding customers had reduced the use of plastic bags, which was 85 percent less than last month. On the first day, the majority of people would bring their own bags, and no customers had refused to pay the plastic bag tax nor there was supermarket staffs not abiding by the law.

It was a successful implementation of plastic bag tax and the public was generally aware of environmental conservation who brought their own bag to the supermarkets. Greeners Action survey showed that the use of plastic bags had decreased 85 percent compared to the peorid prior to the implementation of the measure. The reduction was higher than their expection of 70 percent. Greeners Action once led an observation of 18 supermarkets on plastic bags use on the 29th last month. Within one hour, customers had used a total of 2742 plastic bags. On the first day of plastic bag tax measure, Greeners Action found that plastic bag use had significantly reduced to 403 bags in 18 supermarkets. In the Course of observation, no customer refused to pay for plastic bags fees nor was supermarket staff non compliant to measure.

Ho Hon-Wei as the General Director of Greeners Action referred to the implementation of the plastic bag levy as "one small step of plastic bag use, a giant leap for the environment", a major environmental achievement in Hong Kong. Ho Hon-wei hoped that the successful plastic bag levy would enable the to Government to put forward a second phase of a specific proposal to plastic bag control; and to speed up the implementation of environmental protection on products, such as electronics, water bottles, vehicle tires. He urged the public to maintain the habit of carrying their own bags to grocery shopping, and continue to support environmental protection. Yet, not all were supportive in this measure. For example, some retailers 'cheat' with a cunning method by pre-packing goods in plastic bags, supplying paper bags and plastic bags with no handle, to which Ho Hon-Wei deemed these to be isolated situations. Still, he called on the retailers not to take the initiative to distribute free plastic bags with no handle or paper bags. In addition, Greeners Action will actively follow up with beverage manufacturers on packaging issues; later, they will join with a number of newspaper vendor associations to appeal to newspaper vendors to stop putting newspapers in plastic bags in advance.

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Euro852 237

Plastic bag tax is sure a good idea, or how about banning it and use recycle ones like thicker types so you can use it everything u go grocery shopping. Here in Bay area, we have cities that ban plastic bags, it not only harm wildlife, landfill and also the environment if it gets burned.